The Brothers Karamazov

Chapter 4

The Second Ordeal

“YOU don’t know how you encourage us, Dmitri
Fyodorovitch, by your readiness to answer,” said Nikolay
Parfenovitch, with an animated air, and obvious satisfaction
beaming in his very prominent, short-sighted, light grey eyes, from
which he had removed his spectacles a moment before. “And you
have made a very just remark about the mutual confidence, without
which it is sometimes positively impossible to get on in cases of
such importance, if the suspected party really hopes and desires to
defend himself and is in a position to do so. We on our side, will
do everything in our power, and you can see for yourself how we are
conducting the case. You approve, Ippolit Kirillovitch?” He
turned to the prosecutor.

I will note once for all that Nikolay Parfenovitch, who had but
lately arrived among us, had from the first felt marked respect for
Ippolit Kirillovitch, our prosecutor, and had become almost his
bosom friend. He was almost the only person who put implicit faith
in Ippolit Kirillovitch’s extraordinary talents as a
psychologist and orator and in the justice of his grievance. He had
heard of him in Petersburg. On the other hand, young Nikolay
Parfenovitch was the only person in the whole world whom our
“unappreciated” prosecutor genuinely liked. On their
way to Mokroe they had time to come to an understanding about the
present case. And now as they sat at the table, the sharp-witted
junior caught and interpreted every indication on his senior
colleague’s face — half a word, a glance, or a
wink.

“Gentlemen, only let me tell my own story and don’t
interrupt me with trivial questions and I’ll tell you
everything in a moment,” said Mitya excitedly.

“Excellent! Thank you. But before we proceed to listen to
your communication, will you allow me to inquire as to another
little fact of great interest to us? I mean the ten roubles you
borrowed yesterday at about five o’clock on the security of
your pistols, from your friend, Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin.”

“I pledged them, gentlemen. I pledged them for ten
roubles. What more? That’s all about it. As soon as I got
back to town I pledged them.”

“You got back to town? Then you had been out of
town?”

“Yes, I went a journey of forty versts into the country.
Didn’t you know?”

The prosecutor and Nikolay Parfenovitch exchanged glances.

“Well, how would it be if you began your story with a
systematic description of all you did yesterday, from the morning
onwards? Allow us, for instance, to inquire why you were absent
from the town, and just when you left and when you came back
— all those facts.”

“You should have asked me like that from the
beginning,” cried Mitya, laughing aloud, “and, if you
like, we won’t begin from yesterday, but from the morning of
the day before; then you’ll understand how, why, and where I
went. I went the day before yesterday, gentlemen, to a merchant of
the town, called Samsonov, to borrow three thousand roubles from
him on safe security. It was a pressing matter, gentlemen, it was a
sudden necessity.”

“Allow me to interrupt you,” the prosecutor put in
politely. “Why were you in such pressing need for just that
sum, three thousand?”

“Oh, gentlemen, you needn’t go into details, how,
when and why, and why just so much money, and not so much, and all
that rigmarole. Why, it’ll run to three volumes, and then
you’ll want an epilogue!” Mitya said all this with the
good-natured but impatient familiarity of a man who is anxious to
tell the whole truth and is full of the best intentions.

“Gentlemen!” — he corrected himself hurriedly
— “don’t be vexed with me for my restiveness, I
beg you again. Believe me once more, I feel the greatest respect
for you and understand the true position of affairs. Don’t
think I’m drunk. I’m quite sober now. And, besides,
being drunk would be no hindrance. It’s with me, you know,
like the saying: ‘When he is sober, he is a fool; when he is
drunk, he is a wise man.’ Ha ha! But I see, gentlemen,
it’s not the proper thing to make jokes to you, till
we’ve had our explanation, I mean. And I’ve my own
dignity to keep up, too. I quite understand the difference for the
moment. I am, after all, in the position of a criminal, and so, far
from being on equal terms with you. And it’s your business to
watch me. I can’t expect you to pat me on the head for what I
did to Grigory, for one can’t break old men’s heads
with impunity. I suppose you’ll put me away for him for six
months, or a year perhaps, in a house of correction. I don’t
know what the punishment is — but it will be without loss of
the rights of my rank, without loss of my rank, won’t it? So
you see, gentlemen, I understand the distinction between us.... But
you must see that you could puzzle God Himself with such questions.
‘How did you step? Where did you step? When did you step? And
on what did you step?’ I shall get mixed up, if you go on
like this, and you will put it all down against me. And what will
that lead to? To nothing! And even if it’s nonsense I’m
talking now, let me finish, and you, gentlemen, being men of honour
and refinement, will forgive me! I’ll finish by asking you,
gentlemen, to drop that conventional method of questioning. I mean,
beginning from some miserable trifle, how I got up, what I had for
breakfast, how I spat, and where I spat, and so distracting the
attention of the criminal, suddenly stun him with an overwhelming
question, ‘Whom did you murder? Whom did you rob?’
Ha-ha! That’s your regulation method, that’s where all
your cunning comes in. You can put peasants off their guard like
that, but not me. I know the tricks. I’ve been in the
service, too. Ha ha ha! You’re not angry, gentlemen? You
forgive my impertinence?” he cried, looking at them with a
good-nature that was almost surprising. “It’s only
Mitya Karamazov, you know, so you can overlook it. It would be
inexcusable in a sensible man; but you can forgive it in Mitya. Ha
ha!”

Nikolay Parfenovitch listened, and laughed too. Though the
prosecutor did not laugh, he kept his eyes fixed keenly on Mitya,
as though anxious not to miss the least syllable, the slightest
movement, the smallest twitch of any feature of his face.

“That’s how we have treated you from the
beginning,” said Nikolay Parfenovitch, still laughing.
“We haven’t tried to put you out by asking how you got
up in the morning and what you had for breakfast. We began, indeed,
with questions of the greatest importance.”

“I understand. I saw it and appreciated it, and I
appreciate still more your present kindness to me, an unprecedented
kindness, worthy of your noble hearts. We three here are gentlemen
and let everything be on the footing of mutual confidence between
educated, well-bred people, who have the common bond of noble birth
and honour. In any case, allow me to look upon you as my best
friends at this moment of my life, at this moment when my honour is
assailed. That’s no offence to you, gentlemen, is
it?”

On the contrary. You’ve expressed all that so well, Dmitri
Fyodorovitch,” Nikolay Parfenovitch answered with dignified
approbation.

“And enough of those trivial questions, gentlemen, all
those tricky questions! cried Mitya enthusiastically. “Or
there’s simply no knowing where we shall get to! Is
there?”

“I will follow your sensible advice entirely,” the
prosecutor interposed, addressing Mitya. “I don’t
withdraw my question, however. It is now vitally important for us
to know exactly why you needed that sum, I mean precisely three
thousand.”

“Why I needed it?... Oh, for one thing and another....
Well, it was to pay a debt.”

“A debt to whom?”

“That I absolutely refuse to answer, gentlemen. Not
because I couldn’t, or because I shouldn’t dare, or
because it would be damaging, for it’s all a paltry matter
and absolutely trifling, but — I won’t, because
it’s a matter of principle: that’s my private life, and
I won’t allow any intrusion into my private life.
That’s my principle. Your question has no bearing on the
case, and whatever has nothing to do with the case is my private
affair. I wanted to pay a debt. I wanted to pay a debt of honour
but to whom I won’t say.”

“Allow me to make a note of that,” said the
prosecutor.

“By all means. Write down that I won’t say, that I
won’t. Write that I should think it dishonourable to say.
Ech! you can write it; you’ve nothing else to do with your
time.”

“Allow me to caution you, sir, and to remind you once
more, if you are unaware of it,” the prosecutor began, with a
peculiar and stern impressiveness, “that you have a perfect
right not to answer the questions put to you now, and we on our
side have no right to extort an answer from you, if you decline to
give it for one reason or another. That is entirely a matter for
your personal decision. But it is our duty, on the other hand, in
such cases as the present, to explain and set before you the degree
of injury you will be doing yourself by refusing to give this or
that piece of evidence. After which I will beg you to
continue.”

“Gentlemen, I’m not angry... I... “Mitya
muttered in a rather disconcerted tone. “Well, gentlemen, you
see, that Samsonov to whom I went then...”

We will, of course, not reproduce his account of what is known
to the reader already. Mitya was impatiently anxious not to omit
the slightest detail. At the same time he was in a hurry to get it
over. But as he gave his evidence it was written down, and
therefore they had continually to pull him up. Mitya disliked this,
but submitted; got angry, though still good-humouredly. He did, it
is true, exclaim, from time to time, “Gentlemen, that’s
enough to make an angel out of patience!” Or,
“Gentlemen, it’s no good your irritating me.”

But even though he exclaimed he still preserved for a time his
genially expansive mood. So he told them how Samsonov had made a
fool of him two days before. (He had completely realised by now
that he had been fooled.) The sale of his watch for six roubles to
obtain money for the journey was something new to the lawyers. They
were at once greatly interested, and even, to Mitya’s intense
indignation, thought it necessary to write the fact down as a
secondary confirmation of the circumstance that he had hardly a
farthing in his pocket at the time. Little by little Mitya began to
grow surly. Then, after describing his journey to see Lyagavy, the
night spent in the stifling hut, and so on, he came to his return
to the town. Here he began, without being particularly urged, to
give a minute account of the agonies of jealousy he endured on
Grushenka’s account.

He was heard with silent attention. They inquired particularly
into the circumstance of his having a place of ambush in Marya
Kondratyevna’s house at the back of Fyodor Pavlovitch’s
garden to keep watch on Grushenka, and of Smerdyakov’s
bringing him information. They laid particular stress on this, and
noted it down. Of his jealousy he spoke warmly and at length, and
though inwardly ashamed at exposing his most intimate feelings to
“public ignominy,” so to speak, he evidently overcame
his shame in order to tell the truth. The frigid severity with
which the investigating lawyer, and still more the prosecutor,
stared intently at him as he told his story, disconcerted him at
last considerably.

“That boy, Nikolay Parfenovitch, to whom I was talking
nonsense about women only a few days ago, and that sickly
prosecutor are not worth my telling this to,” he reflected
mournfully. “It’s ignominious. ‘Be patient,
humble, hold thy peace.’” He wound up his reflections
with that line. But he pulled himself together to go on again. When
he came to telling of his visit to Madame Hohlakov, he regained his
spirits and even wished to tell a little anecdote of that lady
which had nothing to do with the case. But the investigating lawyer
stopped him, and civilly suggested that he should pass on to
“more essential matters.” At last, when he described
his despair and told them how, when he left Madame
Hohlakov’s, he thought that he’d “get three
thousand if he had to murder someone to do it,” they stopped
him again and noted down that he had “meant to murder
someone.” Mitya let them write it without protest. At last he
reached the point in his story when he learned that Grushenka had
deceived him and had returned from Samsonov’s as soon as he
left her there, though she had said that she would stay there till
midnight.

“If I didn’t kill Fenya then, gentlemen, it was only
because I hadn’t time,” broke from him suddenly at that
point in his story. That, too, was carefully written down. Mitya
waited gloomily, and was beginning to tell how he ran into his
father’s garden when the investigating lawyer suddenly
stopped him, and opening the big portfolio that lay on the sofa
beside him he brought out the brass pestle.

“You have forgotten to mention it,” observed the
investigating lawyer.

“Hang it all, I shouldn’t have concealed it from
you. Do you suppose I could have managed without it? It simply
escaped my memory.”

“Be so good as to tell us precisely how you came to arm
yourself with it.”

“Certainly I will be so good, gentlemen.”

And Mitya described how he took the pestle and ran.

“But what object had you in view in arming yourself with
such a weapon?”

“What object? No object. I just picked it up and ran
off.”

“What for, if you had no object?”

Mitya’s wrath flared up. He looked intently at “the
boy” and smiled gloomily and malignantly. He was feeling more
and more ashamed at having told “such people” the story
of his jealousy so sincerely and spontaneously.

“Bother the pestle!” broke from him suddenly.

“But still-”

“Oh, to keep off dogs... Oh, because it was dark.... In
case anything turned up.”

“But have you ever on previous occasions taken a weapon
with you when you went out, since you’re afraid of the
dark?”

“Ugh! damn it all, gentlemen! There’s positively no
talking to you!” cried Mitya, exasperated beyond endurance,
and turning to the secretary, crimson with anger, he said quickly,
with a note of fury in his voice:

“Write down at once... at once... ‘that I snatched
up the pestle to go and kill my father... Fyodor Pavlovitch... by
hitting him on the head with it!’ Well, now are you
satisfied, gentlemen? Are your minds relieved?” he said,
glaring defiantly at the lawyers.

“We quite understand that you made that statement just now
through exasperation with us and the questions we put to you, which
you consider trivial, though they are, in fact, essential,”
the prosecutor remarked drily in reply.

“Well, upon my word, gentlemen! Yes, I took the pestle....
What does one pick things up for at such moments? I don’t
know what for. I snatched it up and ran — that’s all.
For to me, gentlemen, passons, or I declare I won’t tell you
any more.”

He sat with his elbows on the table and his head in his hand. He
sat sideways to them and gazed at the wall, struggling against a
feeling of nausea. He had, in fact, an awful inclination to get up
and declare that he wouldn’t say another word, “not if
you hang me for it.”

“You see, gentlemen,” he said at last, with
difficulty controlling himself, “you see. I listen to you and
am haunted by a dream.... It’s a dream I have sometimes, you
know.... I often dream it — it’s always the same...
that someone is hunting me, someone I’m awfully afraid of...
that he’s hunting me in the dark, in the night... tracking
me, and I hide somewhere from him, behind a door or cupboard, hide
in a degrading way, and the worst of it is, he always knows where I
am, but he pretends not to know where I am on purpose, to prolong
my agony, to enjoy my terror.... That’s just what
you’re doing now. It’s just like that!”

“Is that the sort of thing you dream about?”
inquired the prosecutor.

“Yes, it is. Don’t you want to write it down?”
said Mitya, with a distorted smile.

“No; no need to write it down. But still you do have
curious dreams.”

“It’s not a question of dreams now, gentlemen
— this is realism, this is real life! I’m a wolf and
you’re the hunters. Well, hunt him down!”

“You are wrong to make such comparisons.” began
Nikolay Parfenovitch, with extraordinary softness.

“No, I’m not wrong, at all!” Mitya flared up
again, though his outburst of wrath had obviously relieved his
heart. He grew more good humoured at every word. “You may not
trust a criminal or a man on trial tortured by your questions, but
an honourable man, the honourable impulses of the heart (I say that
boldly!) — no! That you must believe you have no right
indeed... but —